This is how my garden looked after the first heavy snowfall, as you can see I had hoped to hang some washing out, hence the annoying washing line. I like to get the fresh air at stuff but in the past I’ve had to prise the clothes from the line and prop the stiff as a board washing up against furniture until it thaws.

I think it’s about 6 inches deep here but it did reach about 15 inches and I didn’t venture out in it again after nearly breaking my neck just going out to the bin with rubbish. The snow was solid ice by then. Speaking of which – none of our bins has been emptied for weeks now because of the roads, so fingers crossed that they can get to us this week before the snow hits us again. The forecasters are promising us more snow at the end of the week, and it’s below freezing again.

My greenhouse door is frozen shut. The same thing happened last year and the cold weather went on so long that my oldest cactus plant died. It was quite sad really because I bought it when I was only 11 so it was about 40 years old. The cacti had been fine in there over the whole winter in previous years.

This is a photograph of a local school. If you look carefully at the lower roof you can see the damage which was caused when a lot of thawing snow slipped onto it – £80,000 worth of damage apparently!